Misfired OBC gambit, infighting: How to lose a mandate in 5 years

On December 17, 2018, four men stood in Raipur’s indoor stadium to a cheering crowd, their hands held aloft in victory. To the left were TS Singh Deo and Tamradhwaj Sahu, senior Congress leaders who had just won but lost out on the top job. In the centre was Rahul Gandhi, and to his right, was Bhupesh Baghel, the man who would be the first Congress chief minister for decade-and-a-half. Politically, it was a heady time.

- Ritesh Mishra and Dipankar Ghose

The Congress had won a decisive mandate, winning 68 of 90 seats, and the BJP’s only senior leader, chief minister Raman Singh, had been soundly beaten. Chhattisgarh had voted for the BJP three times, and was not a state that seemed amenable to switches of power.

Five years later, those advantages lie frittered away -- despite the BJP not mounting an aggressive campaign, the Congress government has collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions.

Immediately after coming to power, with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on the anvil, chief minister Baghel set off on creating a regional Chhattisgarhiya identity, promoting traditions and festivals. This identity was rooted in OBC politics, the argument being that the backward classes formed a bulk of the population. Senior Congress leaders now admitted that this was a key strategic error, which was shown up even in 2019, when the Congress only won two of 11 Lok Sabha seats on offer.